Become a Fan

ADVLTS new 6-song 7-inch (SouthPaw Records) is evidence of what one becomes when one no longer qualifies as a juvenile delinquent: older yes, but in no way reluctant to snatch you up by the collar of your black (insert name) T, yanking you back and forth between your patchy, overly-romanticized punker past and a flaccid, greying future in which you might be willing to listen to songs newer than the shoes you're wearing.

Misdirected, mastubatory or not, youthful anger has never not been legit. We all suffered from, and lived through it, and the best of its manifestations are legion. But maybe what it really takes is the sustained blast furnace of a more advanced age to more fully realize the caustic potential of the black spiral scratch.

What you have here is not about giving a fuck or being beyond giving a fuck or a casual dismissal of whatever these Adults might have in front of them, 'cause you know man, it's gotta suck…. The sounds on this record are more like a determined defense of ADVLTS shared appreciations and assorted desperations, a committed stance in opposition to having their own bile served back to them as consumer driven reconstituted revolution or some new kinda media desperation.

Treat it as more than a mere record to add to your never complete enough collection, but as a physical contribution, a heavy, blunt piece, used in shoring up the foundations of the endless, weathering, often tottering, hand-stacked rock wall standing between what ADVLTS revere enough to maintain, protect and perpetuate and the surrounding territories, populated by bleating badasses standing, eager open mouths, like baby pigeons, waiting to have their necks shat down.

As part of this week's Baltimore City Paper's Big Music Issue, the folks there did something pretty awesome - they compiled 100 unreleased tracks by a wide array of Baltimore artists and created a playlist.

I'll be on WYPR's (88.1FM) The Signal this evening at 7PM (and again Saturday at 1PM) to discuss summer reading suggestions, and I have a quite a few - covering fiction, non-fiction and graphic novels.